To be honest, I’m not certain, and I feel it would be hypocritical to feign interest retroactively by checking now.  Still, it’s great that our region’s sportier residents got to talk smack when matched against foes from clearly inferior sections of New York situated in different relative compass directions.

What’s not as inspiring is the uncompetitive nature of a portion of the festival’s endowment.  Specifically, taxpayers backed it whether or not they attended it.  Nobody is that pro-volleyball.

Citizens don’t get good value for their mandatory athletic investment.  For one, Games-affiliated recipients of New York’s confiscated largesse should be able to put together a better website.  Their Angelfire-style front page is only missing a Bill Clinton’s first term-era “under construction” icon.  An animated one would be awesome.

The lone useful bit of information provided notes that “The Empire State Games is a program of: Office of New York State Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation.”  To clarify, they are one of countless bureaucratic clusters that get to spend what you earn.  Sadly, the state perpetually medals at the event.

Thankfully, many of the subsidies were voluntarily.  In particular, First Niagara generously kicked in a large portion to compensate for state funding being at its lowest level ever this year.

But New York’s contribution should be at an even lower level next time, namely zero.  Financing a statewide intramural contest is exactly the sort of expenditure that ultimately encourages our athletes to dash out of New York when they can’t find work after the final whistle. 

The amount of the state’s contribution is irrelevant.  Everyone shouldn’t have to pay so some may play or watch ball-chasing games.  Such active promotion is well outside government’s domain, even if that’s tricky for the particular government in question to recall.

And the timing couldn’t be better for a game change.  Of course, this state perpetually faces financial calamity.  But lawmakers have remarkably gotten even worse than awful at frittering away capital in the capital.

Still, at least some good may come of it on the slim chance that they collectively gain wisdom.  Namely, their dire profligacy makes this an ideal moment to spin off extraneous spending into the hands of interested private parties.

Taking money from earners so that Hudson Valley residents can prove how proficient they are at fencing relative to their state’s mates epitomizes frivolity.  Alternately, New York can set an example by showing that its athletes can excel without state aid.

People who enjoy the Games needn’t fret: they can just buy tickets.  Those who already do can cough up a bit more.  At the recently-concluded Games, an adult could see everything for 30 bucks, which is too good a deal.  Attendees can spend their tax savings on reasonably pricier seats.

It’s nothing personal: I swear I don’t resent the event just because I was scandalously left off both the track and rugby teams for no good reason except my utter mediocrity in each respective sport during my hazy school days.  To prove my lack of bitterness, I’d support any athletes who rang my bell and asked me to buy chocolate bars in order to fund their clashes.

They can enhance lessons about self-reliance and dedication provided via sweaty contests by obtaining funding for their events themselves.  If they sell enough, they could even reduce or eliminate their own surcharges.

Meanwhile, I can live vicariously though the competitors as I watch us make the other state sectors our bitches while inhaling my chocolate.   I can say “us” as long as I contribute financially; the candy would merely be a bonus.

For now, we still get the filler along with the killer ads, but it’s worth it for the discovery of efficient commercial possibilities.  I want neat stuff that’s on sale, and I want to organize a purchasing strategy that allows me to optimize my respective Best Buy and Target budgets.

Of course, astute browsers realize that the Wegmans circular reigns supreme among pitches, as it is more like a food catalog than a simple sale document.  The elegantly tidy layout and delectable goods selection make me look forward to exceeding my grocery budget every week.

Circular aficionados in turn look for a short piece in every edition from Mary Ellen Burris, the Senior Vice President of Consumer Affairs.  Supermarket patrons like what she’s selling.

What does she cover?  Past topics have included cannoli news and the plague of sticky tortillas.  Okay, we’re not shattering the Earth here.  Still, she disseminates information that’s worthwhile in its way.  Learning about the supermarket’s distribution process and product testing is worlds more interesting than, say, Eugene Robinson’s syndicated column.

On top of that, she recently broke irritating news.  Burris dropped a political landmine during last Sunday’s article, as she focused upon something telling about this damn state.  She explains next to unbearably yuppiesque sale listings for Tuscan melons and something called Progressive Fruit Scoops how New York exasperatingly charges a levy on smart shoppers who don’t pay full price.  Specifically, the hosed must fork over sales tax every time they enjoy a reduction by manufacturers on the reduction itself:

One question keeps popping up as shoppers review register tapes…how is sales tax calculated on items discounted through Shoppers Club?

The answer has to do with complicated state tax regulations.  The state sales tax laws require that retailers collect sales tax on manufacturer’s discounts, but not on discounts funded by the retailer. Sales tax is required on the price before the manufacturer’s discount comes off.  And this is a requirement regardless of whether the price reduction is electronic (Shoppers Club) or with a paper coupon. This even applies to products you get “free” with a coupon. Thus, sales tax is collected on the original price (before the discount/coupon) even though you didn’t have to pay anything for it!

[snip]

Because the amounts of manufacturer discount vary from item to item, it’s too complicated to show on your receipt exactly how much each manufacturer’s discount is on every item, but the register computers are programmed to calculate all this.  We’re just letting you know that there’s no funny business here…just compliance with not-so-simple tax codes.

“Not-so-simple” is a polite way of putting something unbearably complicated that affects both retailer and customer.  Set aside the wage hours it took to program registers: paying sales tax on a portion you didn’t pay is yet another flawless example of how New Yorkers are forced to encounter the absurd every time they make or spend money.

But think of our poor leaders who don’t already get enough from you in property, income, and sales tax.  They’re the reason you must get soaked for enjoying your deal.

On an unrelated note, there’s a reason why heartless mercenary LeBron James did not sign with a New York Knickerbockers other than the fact they are a crime against basketball: he would have had to forfeit a significant salary chunk to Albany, which possibly influenced his choice to play in the Sunshine/Income Tax-Free State.

He went all Atlas Shrugged on the northeast.  Who is LeBron Galt?  Now, the Randian hoopster is free to hang out with erstwhile New Yorker and present fellow Floridian Tom Golisano; they can buy plutonium-fueled roadsters and dine upon celebrity lobsters together, which naturally helps Florida’s low-income workers.  The downside is less money surrendered to bureaucrats enabled by politicians, meaning there is no downside.

As for the non-jillionaires among us in the Empire State, we’re stuck paying a phantom taxation rate for the privilege of being extended a price break by manufacturers.  It doesn’t matter how much it costs customers: what matters is that it costs customers, period.

Unfortunately for New Yorkers, this wallet vacuuming is just another in a countless stream of financial assaults by the most irritating state government evah.  Unfortunately for New York, we have other options.

After all, there are Wegmans locations in New Jersey, and conservative rock star Chris Christie makes relocation seem evermore tempting.  It’s not like anyone here needed another reason to bail, although they have one now.  Soon-to-be ex-New Yorkers will be fine as long as they can still get their precious Tuscan melons.

Many would never dream of patronizing businesses they can’t see from their dwellings’ roofs or even imagining where they might be.  Union and Walden?  Do they cross?

Of course it’s fine to support your local Mighty Taco.  At the same time, it’s possible to go too far in the name of parochial fondness. There’s a point where pride in a minute region crosses into unnecessary territorialism.

For example, a group called the Kenmore Village Improvement Society has been posting fliers in the jurisdiction after which they’re named.  Much like bottle rocket corpses littering the pavement on July 5, the bills are unavoidable for anyone traversing through the small patch.

As for their chief goal, they want to keep the Village a Village.  There has been some talk of erasing the border with the Town of Tonawanda, and the Society has responded by not quite literally but sort of figuratively manning the line with pitchforks.  According to the mission statement on their site,

The KVIS has voted to accept the following statement about village dissolution. The KVIS believes that the quality of village life would diminish by dissolving the Village of Kenmore. Therefore, we accept the three stage agenda and will employ our Mission Statement to convey our belief. Just to refresh your memory, our Mission Statement is: “…to improve the quality of Village life through consistent communication, engaging education, and thoughtful action.”

But the one thing that may improve Village life is eliminating it.  By contrast, the senseless provincialism afflicting much of this county keeps people sheltered instead of feeling as if they’re on the same team.  They apparently want their street sweepers sweeping streets a certain way, and they’re not going to risk losing it by switching towns.

Resistance to alterations aside, this area is plagued by redundant governments.  The existence of ample administrations reeks of inefficiency.  Of course, people want control over their own areas.  But there’s just not that much difference between one side of the particular divide and another.

The loss of autonomy in question shouldn’t be treated as if certain blocks are going to find themselves ruled under fundamentally differing political systems.  We’re not talking about handing West Berlin to the commies.

National comparisons don’t apply.  It’s one thing for 50 state governments to offer different service and taxation levels.  As New Yorkers who have stayed behind lamentably realize, each one competes for commerce and people; that acts as an incentive to reduce the state’s burden in most capitals aside from of course Albany.  But there is only invented competition between contiguous suburban districts that are essentially offering the same services.

Besides, Kenmore and Tonawanda have proven they can share.  The areas already split a school district, library system, and paramedics; uniting other governmental features is just a natural extension of the streamlining already in effect.  The garbage trucks work the same no matter if you’re standing at one spot where Delaware Road ends at Delaware Avenue or another.

It’s understandable that the group wants to preserve what they like about where they are.  People remain in their particular neighborhoods for the same reason they stay in the Buffalo area in general; everyone here already knows the laundry list of benefits.

Of course Kenmorites (Kenmorians? Nah: Kenmorers) want what they like about it to be maintained.  But there’s little reason to think that the prefecture won’t be able to keep its character just because it’s being governed by a not-quite tyrannical regime about a mile over.

While some things might change for the better in terms of eliminating duplicate functions, the reality is not much will change at all.  The goals and values are too similar to provoke chaos and resentment if the fusing occurs.  That stands as the best reason to stop acting as if we’re kept in place by an Invisible Fence.  We’re trained too well, although I suppose that means we deserve treats.

But the things people like won’t disappear.  After all, we can still call the neighborhood Kenmore, and it would by all accounts still look the same.  The municipality could enjoy maintained or even improved virtues.

For one, the value of working as one police unit far outweighs the response time differences allegedly seen in dueling fiefdoms.  And we can all promise to still never dream of driving over 30 miles per hour in that new section of Tonawanda.  Speaking of which, three Tonawandas seems like two too many.

Specifically, Brian Meyer of The Buffalo News notes that the municipality’s aldermen want to prevent you from buying what you like or learning your options when it comes to smoking.  Too busy and important to address the area’s quasi-depression status, this most uncommon of councils is spending their oh so valuable time attempting to check your vices:

One of the nation’s toughest sets of laws regulating the sale and advertisement of tobacco products will go to the Buffalo Common Council for review this week, and a majority of lawmakers look favorably on new rules that would crack down on vendors irresponsibly marketing tobacco products.

These are the people who are deciding what’s irresponsible?  The guys running Buffalo’s government?  The Buffalo in New York?  Super.  Don’t be rude and ask councilmen where the city’s jobs or residents are, please, as they have more important tasks than fixing the economy or anything like that.

As for how they’ll specifically make winded smokers cruelly jump through hoops, you can forget puffing if there are kids possibly within about one-fifth of a mile:

Banning some new businesses from selling tobacco products, including pharmacies, restaurants, bars, businesses that primarily serve minors, or businesses that are within 1,000 feet of schools.

Of bigger concern than where you could smoke would be where you could buy smokes:

Beginning in 2014, no tobacco products could be sold at any drugstores, bars, restaurants, game rooms, or on school or college properties.

The city wants to not only prevent you from obtaining Big Tobacco’s delicious products but also from learning about them:

Advertising for tobacco products would be strictly regulated. For example, no large outdoor tobacco product ads could be displayed at retail outlets near schools. In-store ads would have to displayed in black and white, and no images or cartoons could be used in large display ads. Warning signs would have to be posted where tobacco products are sold. And the amount of space that tobacco ads occupy could not exceed the square footage of ads for all other products.

“We want to clean up some of the outrageous advertising,” said K. Michael Cummings, chairman of the department of health behavior at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Well, at least the placards in question aren’t so “outrageous” that they violate the First Amendment like certain suggested bands would.  If so, the tobacco advertisers be elbowing in on shady territory currently held by astoundingly overbearing Institute do-gooders enabled by pushy city councils.  Cigarette conglomerates can have their say, but only if they whisper in the corner.

As for Cummings, he could get a second job as a condescending nanny if he needs extra cash:

“Right now, some stores are just littered with tobacco advertising,” he continued, adding that some of the most pervasive ads are in Buffalo’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

Maybe poor people like to smoke to cope with being poor.  But who cares?  Tobacco companies have ample nerve trying to attract customers who get enjoyment from, regardless of one’s take on addiction, voluntarily purchases, especially since DNC researchers have conclusively proven that the impoverished aren’t responsible for their decisions or actions.  Why else would we be redistributing income in their honor?

There’s precedent for the notion that it’s impossible to resist the lure of influence.  After all, the bullying local government in question can claim that it is swayed by the wallet-stomping actions of higher-level thugs down the Thruway.

To wit, the city is out to restrict both commerce and free speech while the state is raising cigarette taxes by a buck freaking 60 per pack (h/t SooperMexican).  In New York, Crystal meth is officially a cheaper extravagance than tobacco.  This reeks of another Albany victory by the powerful meth lobby.  It smells like iodine.

But maybe the capital’s overlords are restricting your choices and taking your money because they’re genuinely concerned for your well-being.  They merely want you to kick a habit that causes instant death.  Why else do we elect representatives if not to make our decisions, you inferno-scented ingrates?

At the same time, don’t really quit.  Of course, the state despots want you to keep smoking in order to fund a monstrous state government through a 7.2 million percent levy on every Marlboro carton.  The meddling bureaucracy can’t decide in which direction to yank you.

But the resolution is easy: if you really care about New York, you’ll buy cigarettes and dispose of them.  Think of it as a way to stimulate the state without stimulating yourself.  The problem will be finding tobacco for sale in Buffalo first.

I’m trying to blame life’s problems on tools.  But thinking in such a manner is challenging.  Exuding as much smarminess as a lefty journalist is nearly impossible without buying a Honda.  There’s no need to buy a Coexist bumper sticker, as they come standard.

Instead, I’ll let the professional smug piety dispensers employed by The Buffalo News explain.  They never disappoint.  Take the recent story about the dangers of being shot if you venture into one of the city’s sides helpfully titled “Danger on streets as guns proliferate.”

Notably, the harangue takes care not to place the scourge’s blame on trigger-pullers.  In case that wholly objective headline missed the mark, the measured subhead emphasized that “Ease of buying weapons puts young lives at risk.”

These armed angels are seemingly oblivious to the effects of pointing, then pulling.  Our city’s paper certainly isn’t going to teach them about consequences.  To wit, present News staffer and future Brady Campaign board member Abram Brown breaks the news that there are people, some of whom may be involved in bad stuff, buying black market guns:

All it would take is about $100 and finding the right person, and a teenager can end up with a gun, those who work with young people say.

Buffalo’s East Side would be the easiest place to get one, and $100 would buy a teenager a small-caliber semiautomatic handgun—small but deadly.

“Small but deadly” really gets the point across about these devices, no?  They could kill if used in a certain manner, yet they could fit in the microwave.  Yes: small but deadly.  Unfortunately, we have bigger worries, as alien cyborgs are bent on destroying Earth:

“We believe that this gun problem is a bigger conspiracy from those who are bent on the destruction of mankind,” said Arlee Daniels Jr., interim chairman of the Stop the Violence Coalition.

Well, that’s a downer: I’m a member of mankind.  We have relatively trifling matters with which to deal while anticipating the apocalypse.  For one, the article’s other noteworthy revelation is that messing with felons may endanger your life:

“We’ve seen people in the City of Buffalo get killed because they stole another criminal’s gun,” Daniels said.

Buffalo police have seen guns stolen in burglaries end up in the hands of the wrong people, concurred Michael J. De- George, a Police Department spokesman.

“The hands of the wrong people?”  Um, you mean burglars?  Thankfully, there’s cause to believe there may be a respite to the despair.  Namely, there’s a movie starring Morgan Freeman waiting to be made:

Fear motivates most of the young people searching for weapons, said Bob Keubler, who runs the Youth With a Purpose program at Holy Cross Church on Buffalo’s Lower West Side.

At Keubler’s program, youth come in and talk about what they face at home. They tell of teenagers standing on their front porch and watching another teenager ride by on a bicycle and threaten them.

Even if there isn’t an immediate threat, a young person might search for a gun out of a fear of retaliation for other reasons, such as wearing the wrong colors or talking to the wrong person. It’s almost like a “kill or be killed” atmosphere, Keubler said.

Is not playing an option?  Mentoring seems fruitless if we can’t first acknowledge that the adolescent perpetrators in question are actually capable of self-control.  They could always behave and not pop caps in derrieres, could they not?  Circumstances offer flimsy excuses: it doesn’t help to pretend that the youths making a hobby out of shooting each other are skipping CYO meetings only because they can easily acquire a sidearm.

The idea that people impulsively turn to crime simply because there are firearms about is as tired and demonstrably inaccurate as proclaiming humans are dooming the Earth with their prosperity.  The liberal memes never fail to provoke amusement or headshaking.

Besides, there’s no way that the malicious can obtain guns: New York’s gun restrictions are perhaps the nation’s harshest.  Don’t the shooters know it’s impossible for them to get their hands on handguns within the Empire State?  Lamentably, murderers are audaciously ignoring gun laws.

As with the stimulus’s woeful failure to stimulate, the standard leftist reply to crime spiking despite harsh anti-gun provisions is that we merely haven’t gone far enough.  If we’re serious about fighting crime, we clearly need to ban transportation, as feeble humans are just going to find a seller and Glock up if they’re permitted to move around.

But some may just happen to disagree.  Is there anyone quotable who blames crime on criminals?  Of course, Brown is entitled to applaud and weep during Obama’s Oval Office speeches on his own time.  But packing every left-wing cliché about firearms, crime, poverty, and human nature into an allegedly impartial dispatch is just the billionth example of a News drone clownishly tipping his or her voting patterns via submissions.

In this case, the article compiler couldn’t manage to find someone who didn’t find the actual guns guilty.  Googling the words (NRA) and (contact) would have been a hassle.  The same goes for contacting someone from the Shooters’ Committee On Political Education as the writer could have done if he was looking for a local pro-gun perspective, which he was not.

But maybe the reporter just wants to make friends in nearby offices and cubicles.  After all, the rag persists in allowing commie race hustler Rod Watson to call himself a city desk editor, so what kind of climate do they expect?  The hacks have run amuck.

They’ll undoubtedly keep themselves busy: the next story in the local section cycle will either be a fawning look at a government-funded jobs training program or some blather about how hard it is for the working poor to make ends meet.  Place bets.

I am a big bowl of sunshine who obviously loves working with people.  So, ushering visitors through North Tonawanda’s Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum may be an ideal way for me to get on the dole.  It’d basically be a government job, after all: the federal government just threw a six-figure fortune at a local repository dedicated to the most boring amusement park ride ever (h/t The American Spectator):

A stroll through the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum is a walk through the early history of American amusement parks.

But nothing solidifies the historic significance of the sprawling, long-defunct North Tonawanda factory that once produced the most carousels in the world more than a recent award: a Save America’s Treasures Grant, the National Park Service’s most competitive and prestigious preservation grant.

“It’s validation,” museum director Rae Proefrock said. “We’ve been saying for 30 years that this site needs to be preserved and interpreted. This grant validates everything we’ve been saying. It’s very exciting for us.”

If it was crucial enough to be “preserved and interpreted,” perhaps a little more hustling for private funds would have been appropriate; they had 30 years to do so by the director’s own admission.

Then again, maybe it’s wise from their perspective that they never tried hard: as with countless other businesses, organizations, and individuals in 2010, the museum’s staff has learned that the government will pay you if you wait long enough.

For Western New Yorkers, the ridiculous infusion isn’t justified by the location.  Imagine how aggravated you’d be if an inconsequential museum in Topeka, Colorado Springs, or Jacksonville landed a $265,000 federal grant.  Now, you know how residents of those municipalities, along with every other one in America, would view an arcane Western New York exhibit hall being handed same amount.  The feeling welling up inside you is not local pride:

The museum was one of 40 grant recipients out of 400 applicants nationwide. It received a $265,000 matching grant to go toward a $590,000 project to stabilize the wood trusses of the Carving Shop, which was built in 1905, and upgrade its aging sprinkler system. The work, which will include building a steel frame to hold up the building, is slated to begin in November.

Proefrock said the museum also garnered additional grants — $215,000 from the state Environmental Protection Fund; $65,000 from the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation; and $50,000 from New York State Dormitory Authority.

After pondering such obvious waste, any journalist should have been inspired to pursue a story about why this state is constantly in debt up to its appetite.  But Buffalo News copy-producer Emma D. Sapong cannot be bothered with your trifling concerns about confiscated or borrowed money literally being spun away in North Tonawanda.  No, Ms. D. Sapong is too busy doing public relations work for the museum so they can get even more money from us without our permission:

The state and federal grants are both matching grants, and the federal money cannot be used to match the state grant, leaving the museum in a financial bind and the duty of raising an additional $80,000.

If the museum can come up with the matching funds for the state grant, the state grant can then be used to match the federal grant, Proefrock said. To donate,

I’d like to apologize, as I mysteriously copied and pasted the block quote without including information on how to make contributions.  You’ll have to invest the effort to find it; will you forgive me?  Anyway, attracting more paid visitors is obviously a ludicrous strategy.  That’s apparently why neither the director nor reporter thought to suggest that more people should consider spending their own capital at the museum.

Maybe they’re just realistic about the facility’s capacity for self-sufficiency.  Consider the former factory itself, which set an example for today’s manufacturers by being vacated decades before the stimulus:

But nothing solidifies the historic significance of the sprawling, long-defunct North Tonawanda factory…

There’s a reason it’s “long-defunct.”  Namely, carousels are even more uselessly outdated as an entertainment form than actual horse racing.  Of course, the government props up that silent film-era activity, too, so at least they’re consistent about dragging us back early into the previous century.  At least not many people want to follow:

About 15,000 people visit the museum each year, taking in exhibits and displays in its six areas.

According to the museum’s website, which made me nostalgic for 1995, they are open something like 210 days per year.  That’s works out to about 71 measly people per day.  It’s almost as if folks just aren’t interested in carousels and carousel history anymore.  No- it can’t be.  Please stuff that cynical notion in your moustache wax tin.

Still, every one of those 15,000 undoubtedly clamors for the museum to open in January, February, and March, the months in which it’s presently closed; maybe the grants will help.  That said, I suspect that one woman in Getzville accounted for about 150 of those visits on her own.

But you, I, and most of the people you know will likely not be visiting the obscure museum soon even though bundles of taxpayer cash are being used as doorstops.  I don’t think I’ll get to use the service entrance, either:  I may have sunk my chances to get hired by the museum during this smart-alecky blog’s course.

I lost my shot before the interview all because I pointed out that they should do their own fundraising if it’s essential to preserve materials related to this subject.  I’m frankly doubtful a single job will be created or saved out of the outlandish endowment.  Besides, they probably wouldn’t even let me ride the wooden horsies on my lunch break.

I’ll simply have to look elsewhere: are there any positions open in the field of grant giver-outer?  I feel I’m qualified to dole hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations with astoundingly parochial appeal; I also like the zero accountability part.  I better e-mail my résumé to Washington.  I’ll blind copy Albany, too.

The company has asked state regulators for permission to eliminate residential listings from the phone book that carries the Verizon name and is distributed to all of its customers.

In other news, state regulators have to give the company permission to change the directory.  And they call Arizona Nazi Germany?!!1!  Okay, controlling the number registry might not quite be a Gestapo-level tactic.  But that doesn’t make it any less annoying.  That’s especially true considering the mass-produced antique in question:

Verizon, in a filing with the State Public Service Commission, said most households don’t use the residential listings, relying instead on the Internet and other new technology. Dropping the residential listings would save an estimated 5,000 tons of paper per year.

You don’t hate trees, do you?  Don’t be a treeist.  Regrettably, the business has to presently keep engaging in woodland genocide to make the government happy.  But at least there’s no question that the State Public Service Commission knows what’s best for you.  Um, “Public service” is in their name, so how couldn’t they?

If anything, they don’t boss around enough firms.  Supermarkets and clothing retailers both offer public services, despite their reactionary self-serving desire to profit.  So, let’s hand over their operational decisions to the SPSC, who can decide if the outlets can discontinue selling expired or unfashionable merchandise, respectively.

And the bureaucrats in question may as well be given control over individuals while they’re at it.  Humans should serve the public and think of the collective instead of obsessing about their pettily selfish wants and needs.  Plus, it’s easier to let the government make your decisions.

But perhaps there’s merit in taking the opposite course.  Even those of us who find that Verizon make us nostalgic for 14.4 K BPS dialup should assuredly feel they can pursue their own policies.  It’s up to them to decide if the index in question is worth providing.

Imagine a Darwinian/Hobbesian world where Verizon was allowed to kill the residential section on its own.  Society wouldn’t precisely suffer despite the state administration’s deepest fears.  It’s likely nobody would notice except for parents too thrifty to acquire booster seats.

And, in the unlikely scenario that a large quantity of disgruntled customers issued complaints, the Verizoneers could go into New Coke mode and bring back a classic.  After all, it’s in the customer service industry’s best interest to service customers.

Being nice to people who voluntarily give you money is the only known way to stay in business, aside of course from failing and getting bailed out.  It doesn’t matter if companies have a case of the grumpies on a particular day and don’t feel like being pleasant to the public: they’d best fake a smile if they like receiving currency.

They can’t get away with being perceived as jerks for long.  Conglomerates are so skittish about public relations hits that they’ll bow like Obama abroad once any disgruntled customer makes a public complaint.

But assuaging Twitter followers who left a disgruntled @ reply about their service is not an option for Verizon.  They have to do some legally-mandated sucking up first:

Before the change can happen, Verizon would have to win approval from the PSC, which will accept comments from the public before it makes a decision, Dalton said.

There’s certainly a good reason that the company can’t just accept comments itself, even if nobody knows what it is.  The decision about the section remaining in circulation should be up to Verizon and their clients.

Responding directly to customers is far preferable to using the state as a go-between.  Paring the rulebook for the sake of eliminating phone book would make sense to everyone except, naturally, the state, which unfortunately gets final say.

The product in question has plunged in value, and Verizon could reduce costs by not doing something.  But they’re facing the equivalent of Sony waiting to receive consent to cease Walkman fabrication:

The residential White pages, in contrast, do not generate any revenue, said Andrew Shane, a SuperMedia spokesman.

To recap, a corporation can’t merely stop producing something that typically goes unused and makes them no money.  Phone books are going the way of phone booths, and yet New York State has to approve a plan for a business to leave the past behind.  Does Albany think it’s okay that the private enterprise no longer manufacturers rotary phones?  It’s best for Verizon not to ask.

But maybe there was something charmingly worthwhile about figuring out how to earn a decent paycheck without political assistance.  Not only is it a rewarding incentive for good work, but the alternative doesn’t work here in reality.

The progressive attempt to enact a hyper-minimum wage only spurs economic retreat.  Such guarantees are only guaranteed to be counterproductive for a municipality that isn’t in a position to make demands.

Take the Canal Side project, which Buffalo’s Common Council naturally wants to stall with a “Community Benefits Agreement.”  It includes inflated worker payments among its other boring lefty demands:

Backers of a CBA want it to ensure that, among other things, small local businesses get a significant share of the project’s retail space; that the development use “green” technology; that it include local and minority hiring goals; and that Canal Side jobs pay a “living wage” higher than the state’s minimum wage.

The Council’s efforts to sabotage a retail ray of hope in an area that’s been dominated by a black hole for decades is sadly typical.  It’s reminiscent of the recent deal between the city and the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy to maintain the greens, during which the issue made a cameo:

An understanding that the conservancy would not have to pay seasonal or temporary employees a higher “living wage,” which the city typically requires of contractors.

The fact that the exemption was an exception defines the problem.  Workers who are valuable enough will make enough to pay for their needs; they’re either already at that level or will get there.  That’s even truer for those employed in private industries.  Distorting the market prices the area out of business while sticking taxpayers with the tab.

Further, it may shock Council members and their confused supporters to learn that nobody is entitled to make enough to break even at month’s end.  Workers toiling for low earnings are free to take on another job, subsist meagerly, request help from a church or the Salvation Army, find a roommate, rely upon a working spouse, live with family, or be a minor who doesn’t have to worry about rent and utilities yet.

Or, they could seek better work.  Some trades simply don’t generate enough value to employers to justify high wages.  Particularly, entry-level retail positions like the ones that would be available at the theoretical Canal Side shopping esplanade aren’t conducive to making it on one’s own.

Of course, a raise or promotion into management might catapult the register jockey into self-sufficiency.  But the initial salesclerk positions for enterprising young people will never even exist if the city insists on mid-level pay upfront.

The misconception that employees won’t be properly remunerated also lurks behind standard minimum wage increases.  Those who see corporations as parasites hold that unskilled and inexperienced workers would be compensated about nine dollars per week without government edicts.

But attempts to rip off working stiff would be unsuccessful even if there were no state or federal limits: a similar company down the street will exploit the exploitation and attract personnel who aren’t being financially respected at Company A.  Members of the workforce are free to market themselves as long as there are free markets.

Unfortunately, government meddling of all types serves as the equivalent of lead life preservers to those treading water.  Consider how they pay their own: every day brings yet more stories of woefully overpaid state workers or woefully underfunded state pensions.  If governments set out to compensate their minions in a way to make private sector workers jealous, they succeeded.

With that in mind, we must let everyone begin on the lowest rung.  As with Buffalo itself, workers must prove themselves.  Thankfully, prospects for both the area and jobseekers would improve after a slight probationary period: the retail presence and wages have every chance to grow concurrently along the Canal as long as everyone involved is willing to engage in the equivalent of entry-level work.

On the other hand, the Council’s wage interdiction threatens to stop development in the empty plot phase.  It’s unfortunately not hard to understand why fat paychecks are so scarce considering the stifling economic circumstances that have enveloped the area for decades.  Neither the legendarily large tax burden nor the similarly huge rulebook are helping; insisting upon living wages is just one more maddening example of aid that should be refused.

The worst way to compensate for the damage inflicted by untold unreasonable regulations would be another regulation.  Making companies pay artificially high wages now will prevent genuinely good jobs from being created at any future point.

The level of base pay sought will either shrink profits or eliminate them altogether to the point of being prohibitive.  But at least the remaining positions will offer a “living wage,” assuming the highly dubious notion there are any.

A decent hourly rate is a foregone conclusion for proficient staff, unless one happens to subscribe to the rather East German notion that businesses are run by cigar-chomping, cognac-sniffing fat cats who hang out on Wall Street dressed like Rich Uncle Pennybags or Mr. Peanut.

Hard and smart work ensures meager wages are merely a temporary condition.  But some politicians are attempting to erect a payment floor that stands on stilts.  If they’re successful on the Canal Side, vacant spaces will continue to accompany the city’s vacant storefronts.

Or maybe not.  The public/private consortium of health bullies that is the Erie-Niagara Tobacco-Free Coalition is goading landlords into banning smoking on their properties.  I’d advise you to put that in your pipe and smoke it- while you can.

Specifically, the Smoke-Free Home effort demonstrates the faction’s concern with what you do when you’re in your residence with the door shut and blinds closed.  For one, they’ve made it so those renting housing must tell you if lighting up is allowed:

The City of Buffalo, working with the Erie-Niagara Tobacco-Free Coalition passed a Landlord Disclosure Law, as part of the Rental Dwelling Unit Registration (Chapter 264, Section 264-11). This is the first law of this type to be passed not only in New York State, but also on the east coast.

The old system, where concerned tenants asked about the smoking policy, apparently relied too much on people being responsible.  The law represents an effort to take care of you without caring about whether you want to take it.

The government is rather actively involved.  Same coalition’s membership list includes a mixture of private and public joyless busybodies.  As for the latter, there are three groups listed with .gov addresses.

On top of that, there are others like something called Reality Check, whose site feels like an attempt by marketers to be with it and engage in hip lingo with the young people.  Oh yeah, and it’s a “youth-led movement within the New York State Department of Health Tobacco Control Program,” which one can learn upon uncovering a group history link buried on the site map.

Together, the groups want to be friends with landlords, even if it takes a bit of wheel-greasing.  As the Smoke-Free Home site notes, the building owners in question can

Take advantage of going smoke-free – we can help you:

-Save money

-Receive up to $500 towards marketing your property

-Increase the value of your property

-Improve the health of your tenants

Specifically, they offer to reimburse some of the cost for advertising a tobacco fume-free unit.  It gives no indication to how much, if any, public funding is used; an inquiring e-mail had not yet been answered at the time I clicked “Publish.”  Regardless, having a government-connected entity at best merely associated with an effort to financially promote particular businessmen sounds… about right, sadly.

They also have a listing of apartments available where lighting and puffing are prohibited.  The link is unavailable here because I didn’t include it.  For the conglomerate, the alternative is nearly too horrid to ponder.  On the site, they treat smoke like it’s an unstoppable zombie plague from a Roger Corman-produced Off Beat Cinema offering.  Look out for The Creeping Smoke!

Smoke drifting from lit tobacco products and/or exhaled by smokers seeps into the living spaces of other tenants and common areas of residential buildings. Secondhand smoke (SHS) travels through lighting fixtures, cracks in walls, around plumbing, under doors and shared heating/ventilation.

Weatherstripping won’t save us, although we’re ultimately safe due to the imaginary nature of the specter.  But that won’t stop the group from hyping fears about the emanations from a lit cigarette traveling through a room, under a door, through a hallway, under another door, and into another room.

They’re also not particularly concerned with your trifling desire to live how you want.  To wit, the site also contains a section of odious tips for tenants, which includes this remarkable statement regarding their legal view of little lit tobacco sticks:

Smoking is not a right guaranteed under the Constitution. You have a right to ask landlords/management companies to protect you from unwanted SHS and to expect reasonable action.

It’s true the right to tobacco indulgence is not spelled out in either in the original text nor in any particular Amendment, although that’s a rather preposterous way to approach individual rights.  What else do you like to do that isn’t explicitly written down in the Constitution?  Meanwhile, it’s not like the government is encouraging lawsuits.  Oh, wait- yeah they are:

Tenants are beginning to bring lawsuits regarding secondhand smoke, and some are winning.

Why not sue if the stereo’s too loud?  Maybe the courts are the best place to turn if a neighbor’s haughty cat flashes you a dirty look, too.  After all, coercing private entities to conform to their will is their way.

The association doesn’t trust anyone to handle negotiations themselves.  Landlords have every right to deem their properties smoke-free, just as tenants have every right to look for such policies if they desire.  If this is what owners and leasers mutually want, smoke-free buildings will naturally come into existence.  Governmental groups needn’t involve themselves, although it’s too late for that.

Instead, facets of the area’s administration have involved themselves in a Roswell Park-based initiative.  They’re severely concerned with oozing smoke they believe has diabolically itinerant properties, including the ability to wreak havoc in private buildings.

Yes, they should find something better to do considering the myriad problems facing the area.  Either way, good intentions are no excuse for minor-league coercion performed in the name of dubious health concerns.

The only thing worse than getting hassled by fellow citizens is when they gain partial governmental support.  All of the laws, financing, and efforts could have been made redundant if they allowed anyone bothered by a building with smoking going on inside to look elsewhere or talk to the landlord.  The anti-smoking assemblage has once again made your individual business their own.  At least they’re consistent.

Specifically, their site notes that Hallwalls gets “major support” from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, both of which my extensive research indicates are governmental agencies.  In essence, the public is paying for someone else’s idea of “art,” which should trouble all involved.

Artists’ output is by definition subjectively appealing.  What some find interesting or fun is junk to others.  You’re free to dislike the poker-playing dogs and velvet Elvises if you’d like, snob, but that’s the point: it’s a personal decision that should lead to a voluntary purchase.

But guess who doesn’t care?  The web gnomes at Hallwalls are too busy being self-righteous to worry themselves about how you would spend your money.  A passage from their history section illustrates how they equate restriction of expression with having to earn livings on their own:

After a spurt of growth in the late 1980s, public arts funding at all levels of government was cut drastically, accompanied by attacks on artists’ free speech. Hallwalls—like all organizations nationwide—was forced to cut back, both its overall budget and its staff size, while simultaneously embracing a new additional role as a fearless advocate for artistic freedom as well as innovation.

That’s nice, although the paragraph could have used some humorlessly tedious bitching about the vileness of Republicans.  Other than that, the author is rather demanding about his or her sense of entitlement to state and federal money without state and federal restrictions.  The only thing worse than a panhandler is a mugger.

What the paragraph producer doesn’t get is that the cuts took place for good reason: it’s not the public’s job to finance any particular expression.  Freedom of speech is worlds different from the freedom to have your speech subsidized.

The group’s forays into partisanship aren’t helping, either.  Take a recent event where Hallwalls screened Stop Loss, a thoroughly antiwar film that also tanked at the box office.  But they had their heart set upon pushing an agenda, as indicated by the beginning of their event description:

This first in a series of events sharing the stories of war resisters and their struggles for justice

…And so forth.  It’s always nice when groups that get your money tell you how to think.  Such brazen disregard for drawing an audience is unacceptable yet sadly understandable given the circumstances.

Ignoring commercial potential is to be expected from a group that’s set up shop in Babeville, Ani DiFranco’s clubhouse.  That company’s site also brags about the public currency it received, which is for some reason is a common theme among people with fierce aversion to authority:

Babeville is in fact two buildings: the sanctuary, which faces Delaware Avenue, and the parish house, which faces Tupper. Viewed from outside, they appear to be a single entity—which is not a bad metaphor for the way that Babeville brings together past and future, art and commerce, private and public funding.

What a rebel!  Oddly, the purportedly autonomous DiFranco wouldn’t get a loan to cover the entire cost of setting up her own business.  Antiestablishment types should be opposed to receiving government checks, but they seemingly only hate The Man until the electric bill arrives.  Meanwhile, they’ll undoubtedly suggest that Carl Paladino is a hypocrite for taking available tax credits.  Perhaps insisting on direct grants would have been preferable.

They also want the state and nation to continue propping up artists who want to inflict their work upon the community, even though many consider much of what’s produced to be a study in weirdness.  Of course, you’re free to like anything made by any creative type, as fondness for art and music is as personal as any other human experience.  That said, if you like Ms. DiFranco’s music, you’re wrong.  To be fair, she at least cornered the market on staccato feminist anthems.

But it’s still up to you whether you listen, as is your fondness for the art group in question.  It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with Hallwalls, as they should be free to sponsor and produce whatever they’d like.  And many people undoubtedly appreciate having such arty outposts in the city even if they don’t patronize them.  But they should get to opt out: the sole issue is with the mandatory backing by workers in the state and country.

Money taken from the general populace shouldn’t back a nonessential function during boom times, and the dole should certainly dry up during an era of continuous economic teetering.  Cutting funding would force Hallwalls to work harder to attract donations and an audience willing to compensate them for what they generate.  And that’s as it should be, just as with every other business.

It might mean higher admission fees for next year’s Artists & Models, which is fine and desirable, too: ticket buyers would merely be paying market rates.  Only attendees having fun ought to be charged, just as you shouldn’t have to pay for a piece you wouldn’t hang in your den.

It’s no better to use public cash to fashion supposedly edgy installations than it is to buy Thomas Kinkade calendars for everyone.  If he is indeed the Painter of Light, then it’s best to wallow in the darkness.